Abe Lincolns' dialect

[Tom Zurinskas]

Abe Lincoln's dialect as told by someone who was there: (no reference)

"...the by-then extremely old young Lieutenant demonstrated by reciting the Gettysburg address as Lincoln had those 75 years earlier.  The first thing that Lincoln did was to pronounce "do" to rhyme with "so" and "go" and not to rhyme with "dew" or "to". When you stop and think about it though, we still have traces of "do" rhyming with "so" and "go", as in "don't". I don't think I have ever heard "dewn't" rather than "don't". And oddly enough, it is not "will" and "willn't", it's "will" and "won't", rhyming with "don't".  The other thing I learned from the "old, young Lieutenant" I have never forgot nor heard again, from anyone, and that was how Lincoln spoke his wind-up: "and that government of the people,by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth" was not the way Lincoln said it. He said it: "and that government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE shall not perish from the earth. China Court"

I hear "won't" often said as ~wuent nowadays and sometimes as a two-vowel sound ~woe'uent (~oe as in "toe" and ~ue as in "true").

Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk








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> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:31:17 +0000
> From: truespel at HOTMAIL.COM
> Subject: some studies from the Journal of Sociolinguistics
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
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> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
> Subject: some studies from the Journal of Sociolinguistics
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> Interesting studies in social lingusitics from the Journal of Sociolinguistics.
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> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-9841/homepage/virtual_issue.htm
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>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, Conn 20 yrs, Tenn 3, NJ 33, now Fl 9.
> See how English spelling links to sounds at http://justpaste.it/ayk
>
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